


Prometheus

by MathConcepts



Series: Just a dream [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: An absolutely messed up misunderstanding, Andy is fucked up and never recovered from Quynh's loss, Andy's Nightmares, Angst and Tragedy, Character Death, F/F, Heavy Angst, Mentioned suicidal actions, Not A Happy Ending, Not Happy, Post-Movie, Quynh comes back, survivor's guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:00:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25522489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MathConcepts/pseuds/MathConcepts
Summary: She sees Quynh in her dreams all the time. This is just like any other dream.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Series: Just a dream [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1851199
Comments: 5
Kudos: 91





	Prometheus

**Author's Note:**

> Prometheus: a demigod, one of the Titans, who was worshiped by craftsmen. When Zeus hid fire from man, Prometheus stole it by trickery and returned it to earth. As punishment, Zeus chained him to a rock where an eagle fed each day on his liver, which grew again each night; he was rescued by Hercules. 
> 
> Except there is no Hercules in this situation.

She knows she's dreaming when she wakes up to Quynh's face, to her weight resting her stomach. It's not really Quynh, of course not. Because Quynh is gone, she's at the bottom of ocean in an iron cage, dying, every hour, every day, every year since she was ripped away from Andy. Dying, or dead. Forgive her, she hopes Qyunh is dead. She _is_ dead, has been dead a long time to Andy. To think that she might be suffering to this very day is a path that leads to insanity, and nothing more. Andy learned that a long time ago.   
  
The dream Quynh is smiling down at her, it is not a particularly nice smile, but her face is for once not blue in the need for air, or distorted by flickering flames or rippling water, like in so many of Andy's dreams, so Andy will take it.   
  
"Wake up, Andromache," dream Quynh says.  
  
"I am awake." Andy says hoarsely. She's not, she's dreaming, but she won't bother to explain this to dream Quynh. Dreams never understand that they aren't real. (Andy has tried to make them understand. It never works.)  
  
"It's been a long time, Andromache." dream Quynh says, shifting herself so that her knees better clamp Andy's arms against her sides. Huh. Andy didn't notice she was doing that. The last time they were in this position was some five hundred years ago, give or take, and Quynh had fucked her into unconsciousness.  
  
"It has." Andy agrees. "I go by Andy now." she adds. Might have fun with it while it lasts.  
  
" _Andy,_ " the dream Quynh repeats, her lip twisting as the name leaves her tongue. She doesn't look impressed.   
  
"You don't like it."  
  
Dream Quynh shrugs. "It doesn't fit you as well as Andromache does." Andy shrugs herself. Each to their own and all that.   
  
"What do you want, Quynh?" It's better to get it over with already. Then she can wake up and go steal a bottle of expensive as fuck wine from Nicky's private stash and get wasted til' she forgets the entire fucking thing.   
  
  
Dream Quynh bares her teeth at her, and Andy feels the edge of a knife she hadn't noticed before against her throat. No, she'd always known it was there, she just never gave it any mind. Quynh has always appeared with something of the sort in her dreams, a rope, an axe, once she came wielding a crucifix and screaming _witch_ , so a knife is not off par. "I want to hurt you, Andromache. You left me there. You let them take me and left me there to rot for _eternity_." Andy swallows against the lump in her throat, feels the dream blade scrape against her skin at the movement.   
  
"We looked for you, Quynh. We looked for years and years." It's a fucking paltry excuse, and Andy shuts her eyes as she says the words, too ashamed to even say them to the face of this dream Quynh. Because it doesn't _fucking matter_. She may have looked for years and years, she could have looked for a fucking century, but she never found Quynh. And that's all that matters.  
  
"But you didn't find me," the dream Q echoes her thoughts with a sneer, and Andy's eyes snap open to meet hers, they're blazing with anger. With hatred. "You gave up. You moved on. You forgot all about me."  
  
"I never forgot about you!" Andy snarls. It's a dream, just a dream, but of all the fucked up things her mind can throw at her, this is not something she cares to let herself be put through. "I stopped looking for you because it was hopeless! I was never going to find you, and I had to accept that!"   
  
Dream Quynh blinks, then growls wordlessly, jamming her blade hard against Andy's neck. Not enough to cut, but this is a dream. At least physically, dreams can do nothing to harm one. "You say it was hopeless, but _here. I. am_." she hisses.   
  
Andy stares at her for a moment, taking her in. The loose, finely brushed hair that falls over her shoulders, the clear, unbloodied face screwed up in rage, the modern clothes she's dressed in - red of course, Quynh so did love the color red - and starts to laugh.   
  
"You're not real, love." she chuckles. Her own mind is a bitch sometimes, it can torment her in ways that are more painful than anything she's endured during her long years on the planet. Above her, Quynh's face has gone stony, and the slap that follows knocks Andy's head to the side, whiting out her vision for a moment and sending her hair over her face.  
  
"What. the. fuck?" she growls as she rolls her head back, no dream she's ever had has done that to her. Well, it just proves that there is in fact, a first time for everything.   
  
"You are despicable." Dream Quynh informs her, disgust scrawled across her features. "I have died in perpetuity. Day after day, hour after hour, for a time that seemed to have no end. I lived, only to die once more. And again, and again and again. Even now I feel the water in my lungs, the salt on my lips. I have lived an endless cycle of horror, Andromache, and you think to mock me?"   
  
  
Andy shakes her head. The speech is intense, even for what she knows her brain is capable of constructing. But it's not as if she hasn't thought of Quynh's...situation in that way, Quynh's endless horror has been the darkest spot in her mind for the the last era. Sometimes she imagines what it's like, (she's drowned herself enough times to have a pretty good idea,) and just the thought leaves her clammy and shaking for hours afterward. Never, in any of her countless lives would she mock it. Quynh was her love once, was her life. Now she's Andy's burden, her horror, the one who wakes her screaming at night. Her...  
  
..Her own Prometheus.   
  
  
" _Prometheus_." Andy says, bemused. It's a brilliant analogy, really. She should have thought of it before. Well, she _has_ , but the old story has always hit too close to home. In a dream it's fair game, she supposes. Dream Quynh narrows her eyes, looking like she wants to slap Andy again.  
  
"What do you mean?" the knife digs in more, but it's better than a slap.  
  
"Prometheus, Quynh. The Greeks. Prometheus stole fire from the gods, and his punishment was to die over and over. I believe an eagle and a liver were involved."  
  
"I know the tale." Dream Quynh says. "You think of me this way?"  
  
"I think of myself as Zeus." Andy corrects. "He chained Prometheus to that rock and left him there to die. Sounds a lot like me, don't you think?"   
  
Quynh snorts, her jaw twitching. Andy always loved it when her jaw did that, she wishes she could touch it. Her hands are still pinned under Quynh's knees though, so that's an acceptable substitute. "You still mock me." she says.  
  
"Baby, if I could have taken your place I would have." Andy sighs. She means it too. She would have leapt into that ugly iron thing if the choice had been offered to her, without a moment's hesitation.  
  
"You think that will make me forgive you?" Dream Quynh's voice is incredulous, and Andy gets the weird feeling that she may be missing something here. Dreams. Jesus.   
  
"I can't forgive myself on your behalf." Andy says. Dreams do like to get into their characters, but at the end of the day, they are still dreams and Andy is still fucking alone. "You're not real." she tacks on, because it's always good to keep sticking it to them. Keeps one sane.  
  
Dream Quynh's lips pull back from her teeth, making look like she's on the verge of doing something horrible, but she seems to reconsider, and dips her head, her hair brushing all over Andy as she puts her lips against her ear. Andy feels her warm breath, fuck, it feels so real, so _Quynh_ , and there's wetness in her eyes that wasn't there a moment before.  
  
  
"How real will you think I am when I kill you?" dream Quynh whispers, and Andy lets out a bark of laughter. Every time Quynh has come to kill her in her dreams she awakens before the fatal blow, unable to even do penance in her subconscious.  
  
  
"Kill me if you can, love." she says, she _challenges_ , and dream Quynh pulls away, her hair leaving a ghostly trail. Her knees resettle again on Andy's arms, and her free hand, the one not holding a knife to Andy's neck, rises, brushing the fringe of hair off Andy's forehead. There is still rage, and plenty of it in Quynh's eyes, but Andy catches confusion lurking there too.  
  
"Any last requests then, Andromache?" the dream inquires, and Andy is already shaking her head before she catches herself. She's about to wake up soon, she knows, and then Quynh and this bizarre dream will be over, and she'll see to it that it's drowned in a vintage red. But before that...   
  
  
"Kiss me." she says to dream Quynh. And really, can she be blamed? She has needs, after all. She's spent too many years alone while _certain_ people she knows roll around like oversexed rabbits. A private little fantasy might help her the next time she has her hand down her pants.  
  
But beyond all the vulgar reasons she wants to give herself is something much more fucked up. She misses Quynh. She'll take whatever she can get, and if it's a dream-kiss from a figment of her own imagination she'll take that too. Her days are numbered now, and Quynh is gone, gone, gone. "Kiss me." she repeats.   
  
  
Dream Quynh's eyes are wide, and she's staring at Andy as if she's seeing something else entirely.  
  
  
Andy doesn't expect her to fulfill her request, she's a _dream_. But when _dream_ Quynh's mouth smashes into her's the next moment, Andy kisses back, determined to make the most of it. Dream Quynh's lips are how she remembers the real Quynh's to be, soft and warm and ever so chapped, there's even the warmth of her breath and the dart of her tongue. She doesn't want to wake up now, maybe this can last just a little longer, just a little bit...  
  
  
Distracted, she misses when the blade slides across her throat, opening it. It's nothing to take notice of, one can't die in dreams, and her vision is growing brighter, she can already feel the hazy pull that signifies waking up. It tugs at her, stealing the dream away segment by segment, pulse by pulse. Quynh's face is the last to slip away, and when it does, Andy relinquishes her hold on the dream, and submits to waking.  
  
And lets herself be taken away by it.  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
